Characterization and Distribution of the autB Gene in Neisseria meningitidis

作者：Aiyu Zhang, Pan Zhao, Bingqing Zhu, Fenglin Shi, Li Xu, Yuan Gao, Na Xie, Zhujun Shao · 发表于：Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology · 年份：2017 · DOI：10.3389/fcimb.2017.00436 · 被引用次数：31 · 研究领域：Bacterial Infections and Vaccines、Pneumonia and Respiratory Infections、Infective Endocarditis Diagnosis and Management

We aimed to investigate and understand the characterization and distribution of the autB gene in Neisseria meningitidis in China. autB is flanked by two conservative genes, smpB and glcD, and it can be present in the majority of meningococcal isolates, but not in 053442 of clonal complex 4821 (CC4821) which contains a 968 bp sequence. In this study, we sequenced the intervenient region between smpB and glcD in 178 Chinese N. meningitidis strains isolated from both patients and carriers. There were 110 serogroupable strains, other 68 were non-groupable (NG). Ninety nine of the 178 strains were clustered into 13 CCs, the remaining 79 were unassigned (UA). CC4821 is one of the dominant CCs in China. Forty of the 42 CC4821 strains and 26 of the 79 UA strains were autB-null, while the remaining 12 CCs were autB-positive. According to the N-terminal sequence, most (97/112) of the autB-positive strains were clustered into AutB1 and the remaining 15 were AutB2. The autB gene and its flanking intergenic sequences was superseded by a perfectly conservative sequence of an identical 968bp in all of the autB-null N. meningitidis strains which had no identity with the relatively conservative intergenic sequences that flanked the autB gene in autB-positive strains. There was a 10 bp DNA uptake sequence (DUS) at the beginning of the interval 968bp sequence in the autB-null strains while there was a 9 bp Haemophilus-specific uptake sequence (hUS) at the beginning of the partial holB gene and ...